


Forty-Three and Forever

by noifsandsorbees



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 08:01:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noifsandsorbees/pseuds/noifsandsorbees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alt ending to The Truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forty-Three and Forever

He drives two hundred miles before she lets go of his hand. Six seconds, she counts, is the distance from his side of the car to hers when he pulls into a gas station. She buries herself in his arms as he pumps, counts the heartbeats she thought she’d never hear again. 

He takes her hand when the car’s full and leads her to the single-stall bathroom, using paper towels and tap water to wash the desert dust off her face and then his own. He kisses her forehead when it’s clean and she kisses his lips because he’s there, miraculously, alive and free.

They drive for hours and hours, her hand wrapped around his palm, and he brings it up to his lips every few minutes, checking again and again that she is real. When they reach a dark motel, he’s around the car in five seconds. They part for another two to take out her wallet and slip a twenty over the counter, something he’d awkwardly done one-handed earlier when her death grip was still fresh.

Thirteen seconds in all, where he could have disappeared, could have been silently picked up by anyone chasing them. Thirteen seconds where she could have closed her eyes and had no scientific evidence that he was there.

He locks their door behind them and shuts the blinds, and she finally feels safe enough to step away. To change out of her sweat-and-dust-stained clothes and collapse on the bed. But she counts anyway, just hitting thirty as he curls up behind her.

Forty-three seconds between them is too far for her to let go again, because if they hit sixty tonight, seconds will officially become minutes and minutes become hours. If she hits sixty tonight, she loses him forever.


End file.
